Our travels over the last few years have taken us all over Australia, but we had never seen anything between Brisbane and Sydney before. With a spare week between leaving NZ and going to Indonesia (which became a spare fortnight), this seemed like a good time to fix that. First we spent a few days in the Gold Coast though. I’d never been interested particularly in the Gold Coast (we principally went there because of a combination of a friend living there and AirAsias cheap flights) so I was pleasantly surprised by what I found there. There may be a lot of high rise buildings, they made cast big shadows on the beach in the afternoon, and it may all be a bit too much like living on a beach in the CBD – but somehow its nicely laid back and enjoyable. It’s also relatively affordable. We had a bit of Aussie-Mexican fusion with a Barramundi enchilada one night, and a budget barbecue in the park on another. We tried learning to surf ($35 at Currumbin Alley surf school – they have some good teachers and a great location) and visited David Fleay wildlife park to see a few of Australia’s shyer inhabitants. We also got horrific sunburns – even in November, you can get cooked like a lobster in a pot before you know what’s going on! That aside, a lot of slim, active people are leading a life that looks like the Australian dream here in Gold Coast, and they look like they’re pretty happy about it.
Brief break between nap timesBreak for beginners a Currumbin Alley
There’s even good public transport, which we used to take ourselves back to the airport to collect our hire car. Before we did though, we mailed a 5Kg box to the UK and spent 2/3rds of what we would if we’d mailed it in NZ – if you have a stopover, bring your parcels to Australia!
Having already stayed a night in Perth (which was forgettable) and explored its CBD (which was more interesting) and museums – we decided to spend the rest of our time in WA at Fremantle, before flying out to Taiwan. I was pretty keen to visit Rottnest Island too, although the cost of the ferry was looking like it might be a problem. We dropped our car off at the airport and took the inexpensive bus to Perth CBD, getting off a bit early and changing to a Fremantle bus, on the advice of our friendly bus driver. The hostel in Fremantle (the old fire station) was quite a lot nicer than the one in Perth (most of the CBD hostels in Perth seemed pretty grim) and was very near the railway and bus station. It was also very near the ferry port (which isn’t huge), where we discovered that there was a promotion the next day that brought our Rottnest tickets down to something like what we were prepared to pay! I’m not sure how you can predict when they will be doing cheap tickets, but we went with www.rottnestexpress.com.au
Fremantle turns out to be a lot more historical feeling than Perth, and also has nice things like beaches and sunset. It’s also a more laidback place to go for a drink – unless you prefer suits and ties to long hair and flip-flops, then by all means go out in the Perth CBD. Not that I have a downer on the place or anything…
Don’t get this in Perth
Rottnest Island was the highlight of our stay in Fremantle, and we went there on our first full day. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect there (my research is often minimal), so I was delighted to find it was big enough to have a decent wander about on, go snorkelling, ride a bike, hunt down Quokkas (though not kick them – not cool – neither is setting them on fire) and enjoy the beautiful beaches. Being down at Perth latitude, the climate is a bit more temperate, and of course the water is safe (I bury my head in the sand on the subject of sharks).
What more could you ask for?Quick – it’s got a leaf, hand me the flame thrower!
There’s not so much to say about Rottnest really, it’s a beautiful island and I’ll go again anytime I’m in Perth (so probably not very often). The alfresco dining scene was a bit minimal (mainly the sandwiches we brought) and I don’t think there was a bottle shop – if that’s a problem, there’s an alternative.
The alternative – the semi legendary Cottesloe Beach
Cottlesloe is (perhaps) Perth and Fremantles answer to Bondi – more laid back and with sunsets. The surf is fun and the beach is lovely – actually much nicer to look at than Bondi, more like Bronte or somewhere a bit further from town. The fish and chips was decent too. You can get there pretty easily on the train from either Perth or Fremantle, and its a comfortable walk down the hill from the train station to the beach. There are some bars there too (it is Australia, after all) – so it’s pretty much the complete package, just less urban feeling than Bondi or St Kilda or Semaphore. It was our last day in the area – and it was a good one.
Taken from Rottnest, so clearly not in Perth. Why am I making such a big deal of that?Goodbye, WA.
The Pinnacles Desert, near Cervantes, is only 200km from Perth. It was our last stop before Perth on the way south and along with the wave rock, is one of the strange, random rock features in WA that get a lot of attention because of their proximity to Perth and thus their inclusion on lots of tours. Thankfully there weren’t too many tours around when we showed up, and it wasn’t that hot either – at least not for WA. Oddly, the desert at the Pinnacles is very yellow, unlike the usual Australian red dirt. This isn’t the oddest thing though, that’s definitely the multitude of rock pillars, rising up from the sand and spare scrub. Even (or perhaps especially) with a threatening looking sky, this desert is the kind of place that makes me happy – I like it (I liked Monement Valley in the US too, but I found it a lot gloomier – maybe it was just our tour guide…). We spent hours examing the rocks there, perhaps subconciously trying to work out why they might have suddenly formed like that. You’re discouraged from climbing on them, but we clowned around and took plenty of pictures, particularly with this one.
Presumably coincidence
If you’re a bit quieter or come earlier in the day, theres also a few of the residents of the Pinnacles to meet, like this guy…
SkinkI think they’re talking about us
…and these folks.
We actually enjoyed our second trip round the Pinnacles more – that was the morning one. Basically the whole place has a driving loop around it, which you can do easily in any car, and there are a bunch of places to pull over and get out. Australian tourists seem to feel uneasy straying too far away from their utes and SUVs, but if you abandon the car and go wandering off into the desert, you escape the crowd and the noise and disturbance of a procession of V6 engines pretty easily. You can do this as much as you like, and stay as long as you like, so it’s all good. There’s a little spur off the main loop that goes to a more sparsely turreted area, this is where we saw the Emu and her chicks.
If you’ve ever enjoyed Monument Valley, Stonehenge, or pretty much any rock formations along those lines – then the Pinnacles is likely to be fun, or if you just like the desert!
Our day began in Gladstone, searching for dugongs. Allegedly you can see them here, just by watching off the rickety old jetty that stretches a little way out. Maybe it was the wrong time of year. We couldn’t see any dugongs (I’m hoping we would have recognised a dugong if we’d found one) but as ever in WA, we had the place almost to ourselves and the weather was good and it was relaxing. But otherwise a failure. Marine life can be tricky (spent fruitless hours looking for turtles after all), so we moved on to something a little less mobile – stromatolites. These are rocks formed by bacteria and are therefore usually where they were last seen. This held true for us, and we located them at Hamelin Pool. This is some of the most ancient life on Earth, or at least, evidence of it – which is always a fascinating thing, so much of WA looks like it hasn’t changed in millions or billions of years.
Same as it ever was
With one chalked up in the win column for the day, we headed to Eagle Bluff to see if we could find some sharks and rays. We could – this is definitely a place to go to get a look at sharks swimming in the sea without getting yourself on the news!
There’s definitely something down there!
And finally, overgrown children that we are – we probably got even more enjoyment from the family of wood ducks that visited our campsite that night.
Our final morning at Ningaloo we woke to a wind that was whipping up the sea and making snorkelling unfeasible, so we hopped in the car and drove the couple of hours to Coral Bay. A bit more developed and compact, Coral Bay is purely a tourist operation, but despite the development, it’s still pretty laid back. It’s also just as accessible as at Ningaloo – we parked our car and headed straight into the water. If you were there, you’d do the same.
Heavily developed and touristed, by rural WA standards anyway
The snorkelling here is slightly different to Ningaloo, it’s just as close to the shore, but there’s a much steeper drop off and a denser reef – so diving down is much more possible, and rewarding. Coral Bay also has something else that Ningaloo doesn’t, and after lunch, we went to see them. Just a short walk from the main beach…
A Shark Nursery!
Now, we didn’t actually see the sharks the first time we went, but we did see some rays, and the public toilet in town was full of swallows!
Next morning we jumped out of bed (in so far as anyone sleeping on an inflatable bed in a tent ever could) and jumped in the sea (it’s always warm). The water was nice and clear and we saw lots of marine life – again, why don’t I have an underwater camera? The next trip to the shark nursery, the sharks were at home! We probably saw about 10 of them swimming around, and plenty of rays too. That was mission accomplished, and we dashed off to see some blow holes – as you do.
Approaching Exmouth from the north gave us a taste of things to come; by 9AM it was 40°C. Exmouth was hot and dusty sprawl and apparently closed by 3, which is when we arrived, so we continued to the coast. Ningaloo is kind of a long way from anywhere, so no surprises to find a VLF array for talking to submarines. We didn’t come for that though, we were interested in snorkelling – or shallow free diving, for those of us that don’t use snorkels! Ningaloo is a fringing reef – so you can swim (or pretty much walk) out to it.
In terms of the practicalities, we had already bought a snorkel and some flippers/fins at KMart in Perth, and we had our tent, so we found ourselves a pitch in what turned to be a kangaroo tick ridden campsite. The camp sites are nice, with plenty of space in each bay for a car and a tent, with a scrubby hedge, and plenty of benches. There is lots of information at the visitors centre, which includes the tides and everything you need to know to see the best stuff at the best time. We managed to find a turtle paddling around at the Bay loop, before heading over to the Oyster Stacks, which was very shallow, so we could see everything close up, including an octopus which changed colour. Once we’d had enough snorkelling for the day, we checked out the birdlife at Mangrove Bay.
What’re you looking at?
Once we’d been death stared out by the local birds, we headed back to the beach and chilled.
Even the sun looks further away in WA, except when it’s 40°
Next morning the sea was a bit choppy, but we snorkelled at Lakeside and managed to see a ray, before trying Turquoise Bay and the Drift Loop again. Drift Loop has a strong current so that all you really need to do is get into the sea and keep an eye on your position and get out at the right time; if you don’t you float off into the Indian Ocean and don’t come back. After an entire morning of that, we were up for a bit of a walk and wandered off into the Cape Range national park. There are a bunch of set walks around the gorges here, easily tackled even by people in flip flops. I wouldn’t want to do it in flip flops, but others did and survived.
Where the national parks meet
Ningaloo is more accessible from the land than the Great Barrier Reef, but that bit of land is a bit less accessible – a long drive from Perth or Karratha, which are a long way from everywhere else themselves! I find in Australia, getting there is half the fun, but if you don’t, the Great Barrier Reef is definitely a lot less effort. However, where the Barrier Reef required a boat trip, we could just walk from our tent to the sea and dive in, and emerge for lunch, or a rest. We did get sunburned a lot, probably due to inexpert and insufficient application of sun screen. When the sun is out – it burns hot and long, and it’ll probably get you. Apart from a slightly pissed off looking octopus that I mentioned earlier, the only other annoyances were the wind, which screwed with our cooking and reduced visibility for snorkelling, and the Kangaroo ticks, which appeared in the mornings in groups and got into our stuff after Kangaroos has been nosing around our camp. Apparently they actually carry Lyme’s disease, so these need to be watched out for. There don’t seem to be any sharks in the area, and we didn’t encounter any poisonous snakes, though I expect they are there. If you want to do things on your own time, don’t mind a long drive, and enjoy the isolation – this is a great place to visit. I just wish I’d taken an underwater camera!
All the iron ore that comes out of all the giant mines in the Pilbara travels on private railways, on trains upto 5km long, or along the Great Northern Highway (it’s great fun being sandwiches between three-part road trains for mile after mile) to Port Hedland to be loaded onto huge ships. Iron ore built the towns in the Pilbara (Newman, Tom Price, Wickham) and Port Hedland is no exception – except that BHP, Rio Tinto and FMG are all working here. We watched the big ships in the harbour from BHPs public park, and watched the trains from the FMG lookout next to the highway. Train drivers here are setting off on quite a long, slow trip out into the baking hot desert to fill their massive trains – but they still wave at tourists on the way out of town.
One of them waved, can’t remember if it was this one or not…A mountain of salt high enough to drive a bulldozer about on
Port Hedland isn’t much of a tourist destination unless you like trains, enormous road trains, or vast amounts of salt – but it’s only a minor diversion on the way up the highway to Broome – if you pass all the road trains out in the desert and wonder where they go, this is it.
If you’re interested in seeing things at Port Hedland, there is actually a lookout that you can see the trains from easily, and there is a park with a good view of the harbour. Port Hedland has a tourist office too, though it’s more useful for information on the (much) wider area than for the delights of Port Hedland itself.
As new to the map as Port Hedland and the other Pilbara mining towns are (some only appeared in the 1960s and 70s), the town of Cossack is old enough to be a ghost town already. Settled in the 19th century, it’s now deserted. It’s one of the better preserved ghost towns I’ve seen in Australia, not completely ruined, and with a little bit of signage. You can go inside some of the buildings, but they’re not restored like a museum exhibit. We wandered around a bit and then went to the beach…
It looks lovely…
…but then we remembered it was tropical WA and probably crawling with salt water crocodiles and decided to stay out of the water!
I was looking forward to going to Broome as some sort of remote frontier, complete with camels, crocodiles and presumably some kind of uninterrupted view all the way to India or something.
Broome – the final frontier
I couldn’t see India and I didn’t meet any crocodiles. But the beauty of not doing proper research (or not paying proper attention while someone else runs through the plan) is often pleasant and interesting surprises when you get there. And the camels were on the beach at sunset where they were supposed to be.
Lost camels…found
Broome was full of surprises though. Despite a dry and relatively arid looking landscape, the atmosphere was hot and humid (driving the last hour or so, it had been 40 degrees outside the car). And despite being deep into tropical Australia, we could go in the sea and swim at Cable Beach. So we did.
We also took in some of Broomes unexpected attractions – like the dinosaur footprints!
A blast from the past, or at least a stamp
There are a few of these around at a particular beach and their exact locations are only vaguely given, so at a certain point in the tide when they become visible, you’ll find a horde of tourists roaming around looking for them. We managed to find them without too much difficulty though. Broome was a bit expensive (even to camp!) so we were keeping our costs down as best we could – cooking at the campsite and eschewing the urban sophistication, but we did manage a few sundowners.
Next day, we took a walk out along the coast to see what else Broome offered. Broome is another place where red Australia meets the blue ocean – even more so than at 80 Mile Beach.
Red meets blue
We were walking distance from Cable Beach at our campsite, so we were able to enjoy a sundowner on the sand and then wander home, but we moved for our last night to a campsite in town so that we could see the staircase to the moon. This is an effect of the combination of the rising moon and a certain state of the tide on the mudflats, leading to a staircase effect out across the bay, all the way to the rising moon. Thanks to the clouds, it didn’t happen – but we did get a nice tropical lightning storm instead.
Ultimately going to Broome was a lot about the journey, but the town at the end of it has some nice sights to see, and a good beach in the right season. And how often do you find a beach in northern Australia that’s safe to swim on?
80 mile beach probably hasn’t changed much in millions of years, and neither have the marine turtles that nest on it. During the nesting season, they crawl up the beach, leaving tracks wider than a truck tyre, and dig a hole in the sand, deposit their eggs, and crawl back down the beach. We were excited as we drove down the dirt road from the main highway to the campsite at 80 mile beach – powered by generator and apparently completely off the grid. We were already in the wilderness, the tropics, the top end – we had come from Karajini and this was our only stop between here and Broome. In late October, the humidity – mixed with the salt air – was high (at least to us) and oppressive, but this was to be our first sight of the Indian Ocean, and we were arriving as the sun was beginning to set. We found a pitch and dashed onto the massive beach.
Where the red centre becomes the beach, and then the Indian Ocean
Over dinner, some of the other campers told us what times they had been out the previous night and when new turtle tracks had appeared (they hadn’t actually seen any turtles). We stayed up late and walked along the beach in the full moon, but no turtles appeared. Some of the existing nests seemed to be distressingly below the high water line. The signs also informed us that predators like foxes could be expected to come and dig up some of the nests to get at the eggs. A few practicalities at 80 Mile Beach – this is northern Australia, lots of things are dangerous here – there are tropical creatures in and out of the water, and its a very long way from anywhere – the road goes to a campsite attached to a cattle station; there isn’t a town as such. The beach isn’t patrolled, and has strong currents so it isn’t really safe to swim (all the best beaches aren’t – looking at you Fraser Island). It isn’t a cheap campsite, and nothing there is cheap – bring your own food. When we visited, the water was drinkable, but this may be a changeable situation. It’d be a bit odd to take the drive to 80 Mile Beach from Port Hedland or Broome without a day or so of drinking water anyway.
Things looked better in the morning
We left the beach the next morning to go to Broome, but as the Great Northern Highway and the coastal highway (route 1) converge near South Hedland, we were back again a few days later on our way south to try again at finding turtles. We stayed up later and went out with a torch to sit quietly and wait for turtles to emerge. Unfortunately the turtles seem to base their movements on the moon, which had risen a lot earlier, and they seemed to have been and gone, leaving fresh tracks and the usual collection of depressions in the sand. Well we know now, turtle watching needs a bit of research and commitment.
Our first night in Karajiji was insanely humid, we just about finished cooking and eating before we were engulfed in complete darkness, but just before we lost the light, we saw a pair of dingos trot casually past. The tropics then served up an impressive lightning storm – I think there was even ball lightning that night. Sunset seemed to drive the humidity up and sleeping was pretty much a case of lying still trying not to let any body part touch any other body part, while the dingos howled outside. Sleeping bags were only useful as a barrier between the body and the rubbery airbed.
We had consulted the camp hosts when we arrived, and they had given us a lot of information – so we sprang (or slopped) out of bed the next morning and drove round to Mount Bruce (either some other people got up even earlier, or they free camped there. They seemed to be starting to wake up at that moment, so we started our walk to try and get ahead of them). We’d been expecting the temperature to hit 40 degrees by mid morning and force us to abandon our walk without reaching the top. I don’t know if it did, but we managed to reach the summit, which included a climb up a flue in the rock face, without expiring of heat exhaustion. We met some people as we headed down; they might have expired of heat exhaustion, but they seemed confident. At various points along the walk, we could see the mine complex at Marandoo, with enormous trains heading in and out all day long.
As we arrived back at the car, a minor whirlwind whipped up the dust and rubbish in the carpark – just another bit of northern WAs wild weather.
Marandoo Mine as seen from Mount Bruce
The land around Mount Bruce stretches away red and flat, and after a good mornings climbing above it, a dip was in order. Karajini has lots of pools, and they’re cool enough to refresh, and warm enough to be comfortable. They also don’t have crocodiles in, despite this being tropical northern Australia. There’s no access from the sea, and its quite a long way inland. We still seemed to have some energy left, so we headed down into Weano Gorge to Handrail Pool. This is one that you need to climb down to, with a helpful handrail. We had more fun at Hancock gorge though. I slipped and had to swim along holding our bag above my head to keep it dry, while I got soaked. There are a series of pools in this gorge, but signs and ropes discourage going too far. I also found the pools got progressively colder, hopefully not due to people weeing in it!
Taking the bull by the horns
After another sweaty night, we oozed out of our tent and hauled ourselves to Fortescue Falls – essentially for a wash, although the falls were pretty cool too.
Having a bath WA top end style
The walk back along the bottom of the gorge led us past some big lizards…
Big Lizards
…and small lizards…
Small Lizards
…to Fern Pool for another bath.
After lunch we high-tailed it through the Pilbarra to 80 Mile Beach, but more on that later!
ducksoftheworld 